Old and Middle
English Literature and Language
"The Treatment of Enemies and 'Others' In Old and Middle
English Literature and Language."
Sara Schwamb
schwambs@slu.edu
“The
Door Immediately Gave Way”: The Contested Doorway in Beowulf, Its Analogues,
and Old English Poetry
The twentieth century has seen a concordance of the similarities between Beowulf and Norse and Icelandic sagas, most notably “Grettirs Saga” and the “Saga of Hrolf Kraki.” My paper will enter this field of research and focus on the central dichotomy of the hero and the monster in Beowulf. I argue that the central myth in Beowulf, “Grettirs Saga,” and probably other saga stories that have not yet been properly reported, is the human need to defend itself against the harsh natural world. The monsters in these stories represent the wild lashing out at its human occupants, and man must find its hero in order to defeat nature. Although this idea has been covered, I hope to add new insight with a detailed examination of each element of the hero-monster fight, and I will also bring in characters and sagas that have not received enough scholarly attention, such as the Icelandic “Saga of Gull-Thoris.” Perhaps my most important innovation to this fertile area of scholarship is an intense focus on the role of the doorway in the hero-monster story. Doors and buildings are constantly being beat up and smashed, and this destruction seems to be the result of the heroes wanting to fight inside while the monsters want to fight outside. Although each fighter has the greater advantage in their respective realm, total victory arrives only after the hero has defeated the monster in the wild, away from the protection of the hall. My paper will therefore examine the interior and exterior worlds in Beowulf, the saga literature, and other Old English poetry, in the hopes of determining the mythic importance of the doorway in the Anglo-Saxon world.
Justin Noetzel
English Department,
"God's Rape of the Devil:
Sexual Triumph and Genesis in Beowulf"
This research posits that
Beowulf’s Heorot Hall functions as a recreation of
Eden in which the sexual forces of creation and God’s
so-called “natural order” are torn asunder by the
incestuous evil of Grendel and his mother; King Hrothgar is rendered impotent by this ongoing threat,
and the land grows stagnant to match is valor-sterile ruler. Beowulf, in
this sexual context, functions as not merely an agent or representative of the
Christian God,
but as God himself. He forces Grendel’s corpse to crawl upon its belly in its last
moments (emulating God’s punishment of the tempting serpent),
yet it is the triumph over the monster’s mother that enables Beowulf/God
to pierce chaste evil with his magically-endowed blade and impregnate it:
light bursts forth in Beowulf’s triumph, as of God dividing night and day
with only an act of will. Beowulf, in
wrathful triumph, brings Grendel’s head back to the
men;
symbolically, he brings an element of evil to create
something life-giving, as the Christian God plucked a rib from Adam to create
his opposite, Eve.
Hrothgar, his hall now in peace, has his potency as ruler restored; his wife is
only present in the shadow of victory, showing his renewed vigor.
Any analysis putting
forth that Beowulf was not God operating through man, but rather God acting as
man, must account for Beowulf’s death.
After impregnating Grendel’s mother,
Beowulf’s reputation for valor was born: indeed, her defeat solidified
Beowulf’s standing as greatest among warriors.
It is this “warrior spirit” that causes Wiglaf
to stay with him, and Beowulf passes this spirit to Wiglaf. Through the tapestry of violent
sexuality, God-as-Beowulf has physically overcome evil
and given birth to his own descendant—fulfilling, in theistic warrior terms,
the prophecies of
Isaiah. Beowulf’s pyre serves as final,
consuming release for his tribulations.
Chris Snellgrove
chris_snellgrove@hotmail.com